Day: July 11, 2014

I know many come to Thailand on Medical vacations, so maybe this will help some of you. My situation with blocked arteries has been temporally resolved. No operation now, temporary in the fact that there may be need in the future for a stent if my condition worsens because I do not change my habits to promote healthy living through corrective exercise and diet.

Before I went to Chiang Mai, I was scheduled to have a stent put in the blocked kidney artery – but before the signup I developed an eye infection and had to cancel. Going back home, I told my local Dr. at the Clinic next to my condo that I was also having problems with one of my BP medicines – Madiplot. He suggested that I partially or maybe fully replace it with “Valpress” and sold me some to try out for a month – 160 mg/day 14 tabs – 1,300 baht. Tried it and it worked great – so I eliminated the Madiplot ( immediately the edema in my legs cleared up) and through monitoring I found that I would need 160 mg/ twice a day. (2,600 Baht/mo. ) to keep my BP in check. Valpress is a med that causes the arteries to relax and expand therefore reducing the blood pressure. – It also meant the more blood was going to the kidney through the blocked artery. I started to feel like I did before I started this adventure. So now I only need - 1 baby aspirin, 1 Apolets (blood thinner), Valpress 2x 160, and Folic acid each day. The Folic Acid is great for the kidney functions.

So well I was in Chiang Mai, I saw the kidney Doctor at Siriphat (Suan Dok Hospital) – great readings – no operation necessary at this time – everything is stable now. While there, I also checked several pharmacies to see about a generic version of my meds for a better price since I will be taking this stuff for the rest of my life – Valpress is a import – Swiss product – lo and behold – Thailand produces a generic version “Valatan” and normal pricing is 680 Baht for my one month supply. 2,600 down to 680 Baht — quite a savings. So now I will look for a generic version of Apolets to see if this price can be brought to a minimum. Baby aspirin and Folic acid tabs are really cheap. Possibly getting the total pricing down to around 1,500 Baht/mo. or $50 US/mo. reasonable and well within my budget.

What started out as needing a 700,000 to 800,000 Baht operation and continued use of the meds has now resolved itself to just the meds ( at substantially reduced prices) and change of life style – exercise and diet. You can read about the full story in past posts. Had I had insurance to cover the needs, I would have undergone a very expensive operation and God only knows what side effects would have occurred. Without Insurance, I was forced to really evaluate my situation and seek alternative plans – first contacting the local Gov’t hospitals and continued monitoring and adjusting my meds. All the first drugs “thrown” at the problem had tremendous side effects and actually made the problem worse. Thank God, the Gov’t hospital doctors were not so quick to jump to surgery – and when I was finally going to be admitted for the kidney stent, the eye infection that put that on hold, otherwise I would have never found out about the Valpress.

It was the Valpress that was the real answer to my present problem – relax and open the arties to allow more flow to the kidney and stop it from demanding higher blood pressure. Voila, In retrospect, the simplest solution. My kidney doctor states that Valpress is by far the best and safest med to use to reduce the BP and protect the kidney – case solved. I feel great and looking forward to having my new arch supports bring my back and spine into proper alignment and posture. - next will be a special strapping device to bring my shoulders back when sitting at the computer – thanks to Sergey and his company “Flying Step” I may just be a new man, knocking 10-20 years off my apparent age.

If you have any questions concerning Medical Vacations in Thailand - send me a comment and I will try to answer for you. But my recommendation is to always check with the Thai Gov’t Hospitals for a first or second diagnosis before submitting for any procedures – Insurances or not. The side effects may not be worth it.

Just got back from a great visit to Chiang Mai – first I went to see ‘Kay”. Got to spend a couple of days with him in between his working and we got in a visit to Doi Suthep – I’ll post some photos later. We’re hoping to be able to get together when I move back to Chiang Mai. The day I left he made this beautiful flower arrangement for me. He has been my inspiration and helper during my visits at the hospital – I’ll post the results on that ordeal in a future post – but everything checked out OK and no operation is needed at this time – what a relief.

I stayed at the B2Geen Hotel, just around the corner from the Soho Bar on Huay Kaew Rd. They have the greatest TukTuk I have seen so far – Used it to go to dinner with Jim and Mike at Pern’s the night before I left Chiang Mai Here’s a shot of Jim’s newly re-furbished Honda Motorcycle – what a beauty.

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